


I'm not who I used to be

by ehlena



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Harry Potter - Freeform, Resorting, after the war, post-war era, year 8
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-01 10:59:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17243048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehlena/pseuds/ehlena
Summary: After the war, they all go back to Hogwarts for one final year.Broken, healing, they have to walk again in the castle where they saw their friends die, a few months ago.The new Headmistress, Minerva McGonagall, decided to resort everybody - because war change someone, and because maybe if they can meet new people, and understand each other, there won't be any other war.This is what happens in their sorting.





	1. J'ai soif de bien plus que la mort

**Author's Note:**

> He was the first to volunteer - Harry, of course.

_"Death is not the opposite of life_

_But the opposite of choice. ''_

_\- Robin Hood, Farseer Trilogy_

 

For the third time of his short life, he puts the Sorting Hat on his head, and for the second time of his life, he waits to be sorted. Today, however, he doesn't have any expectations - there's no place he really wants to be, no place he doesn't want to discover. He died, after all, and when you went in the other place and came back alive, stronger than ever, there's no Hogwarts house that can hurt you.

 _Ah,_ the Hat says,  _I see you're more confident than you were before._

Harry is seven, and he is back with the Dursleys, once again. He's trying his best to repaint Dudley's bedroom, but even perched on the highest desk of the room, he can't quite reach the ceiling. He's crying in silence, knowing that he'll get punished for that - and knowing that he still has a list of chores to finish before he can even thinks about eating.

 _So young,_ the Hat says,  _and yet so full of responsibility._

He's eleven now, and for the first time of his life, he has friends, actual friends that love him, and that he loves back. Here, he's happy, he feels home - he doesn't have to cook, doesn't have to paint, doesn't have to survive anymore. But still, he never learned how to trust adults, so when the Stone is in danger, he does the only thing he can thinks of - he goes and save the day.

 _All alone,_ the Hat says,  _in a room full of people._

He's fourteen and he's entered in a tournament against his will. Fighting, of course, isn't a problem - he's used to it, now. He faces a dragon, with rage in his eyes, not wanting to be the weaker of the lot. He swims into the dark to retrieves what he loves the most - even though the coldness of the lake makes him feel like his life is ending. And he goes into that labyrinth, that damned labyrinth. What isn't normal, though, is seeing other getting hurt - Hermione was petrified in second year, and Ron's leg was broken in third, but those were little things, nothing permanent. When Cedric dies in front of him, he curses that contract, and Barty Crouch, and everybody that made him enter the tournament - there are flames in his eyes this time, and murder on his tongue.

 _Vengeance,_ the Hat says,  _is sweeter in the dark._

He's seventeen, finally, and he is going to pay the ultimate price. Walking in that dark forest, he thinks about his friends, of course, the first family he ever found, and how someone decided he would never grow with them even before he was born. He thinks about Ginny, and her scent, and the taste of her lips. He doesn't look back. He's sad, of course, but he's more angry that he never had the choice. So he walks to his death, not because he wants to, but because he needs to.

 _What do you need, Harry Potter ?_ the Hat asks, and this time the answer is simple ;  _I need to be free,_ he offers.

The Hall is silent for a moment, but then everybody claps and congratulates him. He's their saviour, that won't change, but they recognize him as more than that,t hose kids who fought with him when more experimented wizards didn't. They know him, and they want him to be happy, and they know that he'll find that in his knew home.

**_SLYTHERIN._ **


	2. I could be myself, if I knew who I was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ginny followed her lover - she hated being last.

_"To the King I'll bow_

_At least for now_

_One of these days a-coming_

_I'm gonna steal that boy's crown''_

_\- A little wicked, Valerie Broussard_

 

When she was eleven, she remembers, the Hat almost swallowed her head, for she was to tiny. Now she wears it as a crown, her red hair braided like she was a warrior (like the warrior she is, she corrects herself), the small, soft scars on her face seems to brighten with the light of the candles, a softness that doesn't reach her eyes, nor does the smile she faked illuminates her face like it used to do.

_Ah,_ the Hat says,  _Fate tends to melt the heart of the innocents first._

Ginny's six, and she wants to play Quidditch with her brothers. She already learned how to fly, learned it all by herself, at sunset or at sunrise, when her family didn't pay attention. She likes the wind in her hair, and she like's the fact that when she's flying, she's free. She's been trying to convince Fred and George to let her play for weeks now, and they finally gave in - maybe because her father interceded, but still, it's something. As soon as she gets on her broom, she gives all she has, for she wants her eldest to be surprised. Alas, they are older, and better, and soon they laugh and tells her to go back in the house.

_To be the youngest,_ the Hat says,  _in an already too crowed place._

She's eleven now, and she can't wait to stars school. She almost hope to be placed in another House, because then, maybe, they would be obliged to see her, to really see her. But when the Hat sends her in a room full of gingers, and full of red ties, she doesn't argue - the Hat, after all, knows better. The Diary though, that's her chance at doing great thing. The boy talking to her is nice, and he is teaching her new tricks, ones that her brothers doesn't know about. By the time she understands something is off with that book, it's way too late.

_In the games of mind and blood,_ the Hat says,  _it's always the tiny one that loose._

She's fourteen, and for the first time, she fights. In this war's premise, she is a lion ; strong, protective, smart. She's sharp and she thinks she can be everywhere at the same time - but in the ministry, that doesn't mean anything anymore. Ron is hurt, badly, by brains, and how can she battles against something like that ? Neville's blood on her, and on the floor, but she can't heal him - she's a warrior she repeats herself, not a healer. The cruel voice of Bellatrix resounds in her - she was the smallest, the one identified as the weakest, the one you torture...

_The smallest bird,_ the Hat says,  _sometimes has the beautifulest songs._

She's seventeen now, and her head feels way too much light. She has lost a lot of blood, she knows that, and she can't quite feels her left arm at the moment, but it doesn't matter. War doesn't wait - and Death Eaters doesn't give you a chance. She's duelling with an old guy, one who doesn't have a name, and she's doing great. She wins, and she's screaming her victory - but then she sees him, Fred, and she sees the one guy that will end his life. She tries her best to do something, but she's not fast enough, she's too tired, and she's not witty enough. She was great, she thinks, but not that great.

_What do you need, Ginny Weasley ?_ the Hat asks, and her answers come quickly ;  _To improve, to be better._

There's no surprise in the Hall this time when the Hat shouts her new home ; they knew her, and knew her desire to get beyond her pair, beyond her brothers - the greatest irony, in that, is that she now has one less brother to surpass, and all of her friends pretend to ignore the ice that has formed in her heart, hoping, at last that it will melt when she'll end her mourning.

_**SLYTHERIN.** _


	3. Pour a little sugar on my wound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ron is next ; nobody wanted to go, and he's the Knight, so he sacrifices himself.

_'' I did my best, it wasn't much_

_I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch_

_And even though it all went wrong_

_I'll stand before the Lord of Song ''_

_\- Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen_

 

He is not sure if the Hall went silent, or if the Hat just cut him from the world for the time being. He's not against it, mind you, his world had become way too much loud in the last past months. He miss the crash of the waves on the beach, and he miss hearing the wind in the darkest hour of the night. He always thought pain was silent, for he is sometimes lost in the void, and how could there be sound in there ?

_Ah,_ the Hat says,  _pain is violently loud when you try to ignore it._

Ron is four, and he is hiding in the garden. That's not the best place to go when you break your arm, maybe, but that's also the only place he could think of when he wanted to hide from his mother. He did something stupid ; his mum told him not to climb on the chicken coop, but he did anyway, and he fell, and now he is hurting. He'll be there for the next 3 hours, crying softly, until George finally sees him, and scream that he found him. All family comme running. Mom's not even mad, she's just relieved, and she fix him in a few seconds. That night, even though he's ok, Bill insist on cutting his steak for him.

_A family,_ the Hat says,  _is warmer than the fire._

He's twelve now, and one of his best friends has been missing for weeks now. She's stuck forever - or so it seems - in the same grotesque pose she had at the time the basilik got her. She's beautiful, of course, bloody hell, of course she is, but she's not talking, not telling him to do his homework, and her eyes are empty. So that night, at the fest, when she come running, he practically drown in her smile and in her energy. It feels good to have her back.

_A smile,_ the Hat says,  _can also be a home._

He's fourteen and he remembers two things : being in Dumbledore's office, and being soaking wet. What happened in between, he doesn't know, but people tells him ; they tell him that his best friend went alone in the dark lake, with only his mind and a wand, that his best friend had only an hour to rescape him, that his best friend went for him first, even though he also went after the others, they told him he, Ron Weasley, was what Harry Potter would miss the most in the entire world.

_Friendship,_ the Hat says,  _is a gift you need to cherish._

He's seventeen, and nothing is well anymore. War, he learned, doesn't discriminate between the good ones and the bad ones, doesn't care either you're young or old, and certainly doesn't ask if you have a family waiting for you. Seeing the Creevey was bad, but not as bad as learning that Tonks and Lupin died, and he can't describe the feeling of spotting Fred's body, nor the feeling he has when he sees George, destroyed by his sorrow. He thinks he fall on his knee, but there, in the darkest time of his life, there's a hand in his hair, and a voice talking slowly, softly, he doesn't get she says, but he knows, he's not alone.

_What do you need, Ronald Weasley ?_ the Hat asks,  __and he looks into brown eyes, far away, when he says ; _Love._

Relief comes in wave when the Hat finally chose his new home ; and if he's a little bit disappointed to leave his old room, and a little bit nostalgic to leave his old roommates, he still thinks it's for the best, and the laughs and the happy screams that are coming from the Hall proves him right.

**_HUFFLEPUFF._ **


	4. Pick a star on the dark horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Luna turn - and everybody is looking at her with curiosity, has the war changed her ?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry ! My computer died and then I went into another country, so I hadn't time to update this.

'' _All you can do is try to know who your friends are  
As you head off to the war ''_

_\- Regina Spektor, The Call_

 

She's almost dancing to the central stage - the way she moves make people think of the wind sometimes, it's like she's following a rhythm only she knows, but that is so well defined that it can't be a coincidence. Truth is, she walks so lightly you almost can't see how she's doing it, but people, since the war, have learned to look more closely, and they don't appreciate it when they can't understand, even though it's right in front of them.

_Ah,_ the Hat says,  _is it possible for a soul to be untouched after they went to Hell ?_

Luna is four, and there's dirt under her nails. She's in the garden with her mother, and they are supposed to throw the gnomes away. She tries to help her mom, but she's more or less playing with the pixies, unwilling to hurt them ; that's her, not wanting to hurt anything alive, not even want the beast is mean with her. Her mother is smiling, looking at her with a tenderness she can't quite grasp at such a young age, but when she stops playing with the gnome to look at her mom, the little thing bites her, unhappy to be ignored. Luna cries, and her mom hugs her hard.

_A mother's love,_ the Hat says,  _is stronger than everything else in the world, even the torrent in the river._

She's nine now, and she's reading a book named  _Fantastic Beast and Where to Find them,_ while her dad writes an new article for The Quibbler. They are not talking, but they are comfortable in the silence, even more because the radio is playing in the background. Soon, her mother favourite song come - it's a Celestina Warbeck piece - and they both stops what they are doing. She's breathing heavily, and he notices that, so he offers her his hand, and for the first time in forever, they laugh together, while he's trying to teach her how to dance properly. A lot of toes are bruised that day.

_Family,_ the Hat says,  _can take many forms ; but it's always a refuge._

Luna's thirteen, and she just met a red-haired girl with a pretty smile. The kind of smile that makes you want to smile too ; the kind of smile that says, hey, here I am, you're not alone anymore. Her heart is as red as her hair, and soon she learns that it comes from the fire inside that girl ; there's nothing that can stop her, that she is sure, the Earth could bow for that ginger teenager. One day, the girls keep her a place beside her for the potion class ; and when some people try to make fun of her, the red-haired girl smile to them too, but it's a much more wicked grin.

_Being invisible,_ the Hat says, _is impossible when someone cares._

She's sixteen, and there's a big splash of red on her left cheek. Her fingers are recovered of gold, and her back hurts, but she doesn't care. She's humming a classical song her father quite loves, and she is looking are her ceiling for imperfections. Even though she tied her hair that morning, it's all over the place now. She has been painting for hours, but the result is quite spectacular. They are five, and they are interlaced, and they take all the place available, but they are worth it ; they can take all they want, for what she cares, because they gave her all she wanted. 

_What  you need, Luna Lovegood ?_ the Hat asks, and she frowns, because that's a really difficult question, and after a long silence, she finally answers ;  _Nothing, I already have everything I need._

That time, nobody is surprised when she is sorted ; when she was younger, they thought she was a fool, and they didn't understand the Sorting Hat's decision, but after all the horrors they saw in the War, they know that wisdom sometimes is disguised as lunacy, but that madness is never disguised as wisdom.

**_RAVENCLAW._ **


	5. Growing pains are keeping me up at night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lavender's nervous - and it's why she decides to go, before her nerves get the best of her.
> 
>  
> 
> In which I decided Lavender survived the War, because she deserves it.

_''And I guess the bad can get better_  
_Gotta be wrong before it's right''_

_\- Growing Pains, Alessia Cara_

 

The Hat is casting a shadow over her face - from the Hall, it's difficult to see, to really see her features. But they all know she has scars, they can imagine them, growing over her nose, crossing her right eyes, and forming a strange tree just over her eyebrow. How ironic, she thinks, that all of those years she looked at the Bo-Who-Lived's scar almost like she worshipped it, and now, it's her turn. There's whispers in the piece, but she doesn't care - she's way over it now.

 _Ah,_ the Hat says,  _beauty is ephemeral._

Lavender's eight, and she's playing with her mother's hair. There's nothing she appreciates more than the softness of it, sliding between her fingers, as she untangles it. She braids her mother's hair almost perfectly - she learned to do that early in her life, as it was a perfect pure-blood hairstyle, and one that allowed her to play with her family without looking like she had get mauled by a cat when her parents called her for tea. Her mother hummed calmly, and she turned at the right moment to see her father taking a photo of this moment.

 _Memories,_ the Hat says,  _will fade, but happiness won't._

She is ten now, and she is unable to pay attention to her father. He is trying to teach her how to play chess, a game, he says, that will help your concentration, and will make your a great strategist. He clearly has a lot of ambition for her, but even from a very young age, she knew she wasn't made to be the leader, a truth she doesn't dare to speak, and a truth her father doesn't want to ear anyway. Her cousins, he says, had learned how to play, and beat a lot of opponents, when they were even younger than her - so she would learn, and she would get better, he assures, almost threatening.

 _A pearl,_ the Hat says,  _doesn't need to shine as much as the other pearl to be precious._

Lavender's thirteen, and for the first time in her life, she's at top of her class. She had hoped it would get her some recognition, at least, but no - instead, they laugh. They mock her, and Parvati, for being good at something they don't understand. Divination, they say, isn't true magic, and the teacher is a fraud. She seems strong in the daylight, but at night, when Hermione's not in the dormitory, she cries, and even though Parvati likes it as much as her, she doesn't understand why it is so important. Lavender's not a twin, she didn't learned to share - and for the first time she could have the spotlight, and they took the crown from her by designating her country a pathetic one.

 _A leader,_ the Hat says,  _should appreciate their warrior's force._

She is seventeen, and she bathes in her own blood. She isn't sure why she isn't dead yet, her body, really, is nothing else then pain right now. She feels like a doll, broken over the frozen ground, abandoned by the child who had once cherished her. Her left eye is still open, but she's pretty sure her right is now blind. She feels like she should care about that detail, but really, as she looks the dawn and doesn't know who wins, she almost pray she won't be alive to see the next day. But she makes it - and she awakes with Parvati concerned smile, and a healer tells her he is sorry for not being able to do more.

 _What do you need, Lavender Brown ?_ the Hat asks, and mainly because she needs to be reckoned at last, she whispers in a cold tone ; _Revenge._

The students applaud too loudly, like they would want to cover the mean words they told each other mere minutes ago. She walks at her place, smiling at everybody, sometimes hypocrite, sometimes really happy to see them. There's no one she really hates, and no one she really likes - but they've touch each other blood last year, and that's a bond they can't break. So she is patient. Power can wait.

_**GRYFFINDOR.** _

**Author's Note:**

> English isn't my first language, and I'm not using a beta.  
> Please be nice with me !


End file.
